20 December 2009

All 64 bit

Windows 7 x64I updated the remaining P6T's with Windows XP to Windows 7 (64 bit). They have now all been done.

There are only two 64 bit science apps, the rest are 32 bit. They are the Seti multi-beam and the Milkyway GPU app (version 20b). The good news is that they are faster than their 32 bit versions, so there is a bit of a speed improvement.BIOS updatesAfter the issues getting the RAM working in Maul I downloaded the latest BIOS for the P6T's and then set about updating all of them. I found of the 5 P6T's they had 4 different versions. As expected Maul had the oldest.

I had some initial problems trying to get the program that flashes the BIOS to work, but it turns out its not needed anyway. There is a built-in utility in the BIOS to flash itself. I burned the BIOS image to a CD and updated all 5 of them using it.

Router diedThe router continued playing up so I have thrown it in the bin and got the new one going. They are both the same make/model so it wasn't too hard an exercise, apart from having to find a machine where I could specify the IP address in order to talk to the router in the 1st instance. Once its been setup the router assigns its own IP addresses.

Windows 7 driversWhile I was updating things I downloaded a few of the drivers specific to the P6T and installed them, so instead of using the generic Windows 7 versions they have the manufacturer specific drivers. It doesn't make much difference but it might make them a little more stable.

What left?The only remaining task for this year is the memory upgrades, now they all have a 64 bit operating system. This requires a bit of manual labour, pulling machines off the rack (and they aren't light weight). Two out of 5 have already been done.